The Book of Demons
Published on 25. September 1997
Book
Paperback/Softback
96 pages
978-1-85224-414-9 (ISBN)
Description
Barry MacSweeney wrote his first poem at the age of seven, and was an alcoholic from the age of 16. His hard drinking almost cost him his life prior to the writing of these poems. After a series of life-threatening fits and convulsions, which culminated with his being hooked up to life support in a hospital, MacSweeney underwent rehabilitation through detoxification in several hospitals and an addiction clinic. The Book of Demons records his fierce fight against addiction, the demonic visions that arose, and the great love of those who helped save his life. Between times of ravaging, though, MacSweeney wrote the sequence Pearl, included here as a prelude to The Book of Demons. While Demons is a book of hard relentless experience, Pearl is pure lyrical innocence, a poetic sequence of harmlessness before harm set in. Pearl is an ode to the mute Northumbrian girl of the same name, whom MacSweeney taught to read and write on a slate in the rain, his first love.
Now out of print in this combined edition, both The Book of Demons and Pearl were reprinted in Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems 1965-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2003).
Now out of print in this combined edition, both The Book of Demons and Pearl were reprinted in Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems 1965-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2003).
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
219 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85224-414-9 (9781852244149)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Barry MacSweeney was born in 1948 in Newcastle. After leaving school at 16, he worked as a journalist, mainly in Newcastle, Kent, Bradford and South Shields. He published numerous collections, including an earlier Selected Poems in The Tempers of Hazard, published and destroyed by Paladin in 1993.The Book of Demons (Bloodaxe Books, 1997), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He won a Paul Hamlyn Award in 1997. He died in 2000. Two posthumous books appeared after his death, both in 2003, Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems 1965-2000 from Bloodaxe Books, and Horses in Boiling Blood: MacSweeney, Apollinaire: a collaboration, a celebration, from Equipage, followed by a further volume, Desire Lines: Unselected Poems 1966-2000, edited by Luke Roberts, from Shearsman in 2018. A book of essays, Reading Barry MacSweeney, edited by Paul Batchelor, was published by Bloodaxe in 2013.